Category Archives: Fortean studies

On Saturday, 20 April 2013, a team of researchers consisting of this author, José Pérez, his wife Ilbis Dominguez, Mr. Luissepi Quiñones, Mr. José A. Martinez, Mr. Anibal Martínez and Mr. Richard Flores reported to the residence of Mr. Fernando Díaz to interview him about the impressive and highly important case which we will endeavor to narrate briefly in this article as follows…

In the early hours of 30 March 2013 at around 6:15 a.m., Mr. Fernando Díaz, a resident of the town of Guayama, Puerto Rico, was headed to work as usual. Mr. Díaz was driving along PR-3, one of the island’s main thoroughfares. The sky was light at that time of the morning, although the sun was not fully out yet.
Mr. Diaz was driving his blue 2001 Hyundai Brio at an approximate speed of 35 miles per hour, heading from the town of Guayama to the town of Salinas.

As he approached kilometer 3.0, right in front of the facilities of the División de Tránsito y Vehículos Hurtados (Traffic and Stolen Vehicles Division) of the Guayama State Police, he noticed that the vehicle ahead of him began zigzagging, as if trying to avoid something.

When he looked, he could see something strange coming over the vehicle – something he had never seen before. It was an enormous, dark-winged figure that appeared to have collided against the vehicle in front of him, and was trying to stand up in an effort to take flight. His first impression was that it was a gigantic bird.
The creature never had enough time to get up off the ground and struck the grille of Mr. Díaz’s car head-on. With the same momentum, it continued sliding along the vehicle’s hood until it struck the windshield, continuing to slide off the hood.

Mr. Diaz stepped on the brake, terrified at the sight, and brought his vehicle to a sudden halt. Luckily there were no cars behind him. After stopping, he looked through the rear-view mirror to see exactly what he had hit, but was unable to see anything.

Although the event lasted only seconds, Mr. Díaz was able to take in considerable details of the creature that hit his car.

According to his description, the creature had a broad face like a Pitbull terrier. It had a short snout and nose resembling that of a dog. Its eyes were small, human-sized, but completely dark and glossy. It had something like ears on either side of its head. It had no feathers; its skin was like a bat’s and although he thinks it may have had hair, it was short and smooth along the body.

The creature was black or dark brown in color, and seemed to have arms aside from wings – that is to say, it had six extremities: two legs, two arms and two wings. Its feet appeared to have multiple toes with claws, and its extended wings resembled those of a bat.

Mr. Díaz noted that the wings appeared to stretch out from two to three feet on either side of his vehicle. A 2001 Hyundai Brio measures exactly 5 feet and 8 inches wide, meaning that if we round it off to 6 feet and add a minimum of two additional feet to each side, we would be talking of a creature whose wingspan was 10 feet from wingtip to wingtip.

Mr. Díaz admitted to us that the first thing that came to his mind was that he had seen the Devil.

Despite his fear, he could see that the vehicle ahead of him was pulling into a Gulf station some 400 meters ahead on the right side of the road.

Once there, he saw the driver of the other vehicle – a white Toyota Corolla – stepping out. Excitedly, Mr. Díaz asked him: “Did you see that?!”

Both drivers spent a few minutes discussing the awful experience, but since they had to reach their respective workplaces, decided to continue their journeys. They decided not to make a formal complaint to the police, since they were certain no one was going to believe them and would probably consider it a joke, and mock them.
Mr. Díaz told his co-workers about the event and one of them accompanied him back to the site at around 10:00 a.m. to see if they could find the thing that hit his vehicle, but there were no traces to be found.

Although Mr. Díaz has been very kind and cooperated with us in our investigation, the driver of the other car does not want his name made public, at least for now. We hope he changes his mind soon in order to lend further credence to this significant case.
Mr. Díaz knows Ms. Felicitas Cintrón, who reported seeing a similar creature in 2012, and when sharing their experiences, agreed that they were definitely talking about the same entity.

Luckily for Mr. Díaz (but not for us in our evidence-gathering endeavors) his vehicle suffered no damage whatsoever aside from some scratches to the paint. The bodywork was not dented and the windshield did not shatter.

We would like to express our thanks to Mr. José Oscar Martínez and Ms. Felicitas Cintrón, who informed us about this case, and especially Mr. Fernando Díaz for having welcomed us into his home and bravely recounted his terrible experience, allowing us to share it with the public.

In my opinion, this could be one of the most significant cases in explaining the mystery that surrounds the mutilation of animals by creatures of unknown origin.
We shall continue our investigations until the day that those who know the truth – and we are certain that they do – choose to make it public.

When I read this article and come across the description of the winged creature, the first thing I thought was “Jersey Devil!”, not chupacabras.

I suppose there could be winged chupacabras, but I don’t think the name applies to this particular creature.

Of course cryptozoology isn’t my main forte, but I’ve done enough research over the years to express my opinion about such things. I’ll stand by Scott Corrales’s research in Fortean things Latin American however because I have limited experience in that cultural venue.

Across the world’s great deserts, a mysterious sheen has been found on boulders and rock faces. These layers of manganese, arsenic and silica are known as desert varnish and they are found in the Atacama desert in Chile, the Mojave desert in California, and in many other arid places. They can make the desert glitter with surprising colour and, by scraping off pieces of varnish, native people have created intriguing symbols and images on rock walls and surfaces.

How desert varnish forms has yet to be resolved, despite intense research by geologists. Most theories suggest it is produced by chemical reactions that act over thousands of years or by ecological processes yet to be determined.

Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University, has a very different suggestion. She believes desert varnish could be the manifestation of an alternative, invisible biological world. Cleland, a philosopher based at the university’s astrobiology centre, calls this ethereal dimension the shadow biosphere. “The idea is straightforward,” she says. “On Earth we may be co-inhabiting with microbial lifeforms that have a completely different biochemistry from the one shared by life as we currently know it.”

It is a striking idea: We share our planet with another domain of life that exists “like the realm of fairies and elves just beyond the hedgerow”, as David Toomey puts it in his newly published Weird Life: The Search for Life that is Very, Very Different from Our Own. But an alternative biosphere to our own would be more than a mere scientific curiosity: it is of crucial importance, for its existence would greatly boost expectations of finding life elsewhere in the cosmos. As Paul Davies, of Arizona State University, has put it: “If life started more than once on Earth, we could be virtually certain that the universe is teeming with it.”

However, by the same token, if it turns out we have failed to realise that we have been sharing a planet with these shadowy lifeforms for eons, despite all the scientific advances of the 19th and 20th centuries, then we may need to think again about the way we hunt for life on other worlds. Robot spacecraft – such as the Mars rover Curiosity – are certainly sophisticated. But what chance do they have of detecting alien entities if the massed laboratories of modern science have not yet spotted them on our own planet? This point is stressed by the US biologist Craig Venter. As he has remarked: “We’re looking for life on Mars and we don’t even know what’s on Earth!”

The concept of a shadow biosphere was first outlined by Cleland and her Colorado colleague Shelley Copley in a paper in 2006 in the International Journal of Astrobiology, and is now supported by many other scientists, including astrobiologists Chris McKay, who is based at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre, California, and Paul Davies.

These researchers believe life may exist in more than one form on Earth: standard life – like ours – and “weird life”, as they term the conjectured inhabitants of the shadow biosphere. “All the micro-organisms we have detected on Earth to date have had a biology like our own: proteins made up of a maximum of 20 amino acids and a DNA genetic code made out of only four chemical bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine,” says Cleland. “Yet there are up to 100 amino acids in nature and at least a dozen bases. These could easily have combined in the remote past to create lifeforms with a very different biochemistry to our own. More to the point, some may still exist in corners of the planet.”

Science’s failure to date to spot this weird life may seem puzzling. The natural history of our planet has been scrupulously studied and analysed by scientists, so how could a whole new type of life, albeit a microbial one, have been missed? Cleland has an answer. The methods we use to detect micro-organisms today are based entirely on our own biochemistry and are therefore incapable of spotting shadow microbes, she argues. A sample of weird microbial life would simply not trigger responses to biochemists’ probes and would end up being thrown out with the rubbish.

That is why unexplained phenomena like desert varnish are important, she says, because they might provide us with clues about the shadow biosphere. We may have failed to detect the source of desert varnish for the simple reason that it is the handiwork of weird microbes which generate energy by oxidising minerals, leaving deposits behind them.

The idea of the shadow biosphere is also controversial and is challenged by several other scientists. “I think it is very unlikely that after 300 years of microbiology we would not have detected such organisms despite the fact that they are supposed to have a different biochemistry from the kind we know about today,” says Professor Charles Cockell, of the UK Centre for Astrobiology at Edinburgh University. “It is really quite unlikely,” adds Cockell, whose centre will be officially opened this week at a ceremony in Edinburgh.

Ways need to be found to determine whether or not the shadow biosphere exists, says Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. “If you want a clue you can count up the amount of carbon that is emitted by living things – cows, sheep, grass, plants, forests and all the planet’s bacteria. When you do, you find there is a discrepancy of around 5% when you compare the amount given off from Earth’s standard biosphere and the amount you find in the atmosphere.”

In other words, there is slightly too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than can be explained by the emissions of standard lifeforms on Earth. There could be an error in these calculations, of course. Alternatively, the shadow biosphere could be responsible for this excess, says Sasselov. “There is plenty of room for a shadow biosphere. That is clear. Certainly, it is not true, as some allege, that we have strong evidence to show that it does not exist. In fact, the opposite is true: we do not have good enough evidence to dismiss it.”

A key point to note is that scientists – although describing the inhabitants of the shadow biosphere as weird – still assume they will be carbon-based entities. Complex chemistry based on other elements, such as silicon, is possible, they acknowledge but these alternatives cannot create the vast range of organic materials that carbon can generate. In other words, the shadow biosphere, if it exists, will almost certainly be inhabited by carbon life, albeit of an alien variety.

“Billions of years ago, life based on different types of carbon biochemistry could have arisen in several places on Earth,” says Cleland. “These varieties would have been based on different combinations of bases and amino acids. Eventually, one – based on DNA and on proteins made from 20 amino acids – formed multicellular entities and became the dominant form of life on Earth. That is why we find that life as we know it, from insects to humans and from plants to birds, has DNA as its genetic code. However, other lifeforms based on different bases and proteins could still have survived – in the shadow biosphere.”

A different prospect is highlighted by Sasselov, who points out that a complex organic chemical can come in two different shapes even though they have the same chemical formula. Each is a mirror-image of the other and are said to have a different chirality. “Amino acids are an example,” says Sasselov. “Each comes in a right-handed version and a left-handed version. Our bodies – in common with all other lifeforms – only use left-handed versions to create proteins. Right-handed amino acids are simply ignored by our bodies. However, there may be some organisms, somewhere on the planet, that use only right-handed amino acids. They could make up the weird life of the shadow biosphere.”

But how can scientists pinpoint this weird life? Microbes are usually detected in laboratories by feeding nutrients to suspected samples so they grow and expend. Then the resulting cultures can be analysed. A weird lifeform – such as one made only of proteins formed out of right-handed amino acids – will not respond to left-handed nutrients, however. It will fail to form cultures and register its existence.

One solution to this problem is being pursued by Sasselov and colleagues’ Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. They are building an artificial cell – or bionic system – made only of right-handed components including right-handed DNA and right-handed ribosomes. “If there are right-handed lifeforms out there, many of them will be viruses – which will attempt to hijack the DNA of our bionic cells,” adds Sasselov. “When they do that they will leave evidence of their existence. Essentially we are building honey traps to catch any right-handed viruses that might live in the shadow biosphere and so reveal their existence.”

Other scientists suggest a different approach – by looking at Earth’s most inhospitable ecological niches: hot vents on the seafloor, mountaintops, highly saline lakes, Antarctic ice sheets and deserts. Standard lifeforms, mainly bacteria, have been found in these places but only a few. Some niches, researchers speculate, may prove to be just too inhospitable for standard life but may just be tolerable enough to support weird life. Microscopic studies would reveal their existence while standard culture tests would show they had a different biochemistry from standard lifeforms.

Stripes of desert varnish line the canyon walls of Capitol Gorge in Utah. No laboratory has been able to re-create the phenomenon. Photograph: Larry Geddis/Alamy

And a promising example is provided by the desert varnish proposed as a target by Cleland and backed by David Toomey in Weird Life. “No laboratory microbiologist has been able to coax bacteria or algae to make desert varnish,” he states. “It is also possible that the stuff is the end result of some very weird chemistry but no one has been able to reproduce that either.” So yes, these sites could provide proof of the shadow biosphere’s existence, he argues.

Not surprisingly, Cleland agrees. “The only trouble is that no one has yet got round to investigating desert varnish for weird life,” adds Cleland. “I confess I find that disappointing.”

Fascinating. I have come across different versions of Earth “shadow” life over the years; Mac Tonnies’ “cryptoterrestrials“, ancient creatures older than mankind whom remain hidden and undetectable from us. And Peter Watts’ “Behemoth” right-handed amino acid life forms taking over the Earth during the 21st Century.

And I’m not even counting legends of elves, Bigfoot, dwarves, demons and angels from past decades and centuries.

So the idea of Earthly “alien” life isn’t new.

But maybe, just maybe with advanced biotechnology techniques, we’ll be able to detect this shadow life.

Wrapping up our annual traditions, we welcome renowned cryptozoologist Adam Davies back to BoA:Audio for a debriefing on his 2012 expeditions to Sumatra and America. Regarding the Sumatra trip, we’ll discuss how the TV program Finding Bigfoot fueled the latest expedition, the latest info on the ongoing quest to prove the existence of the Orang Pendek, the potential for significant DNA findings to be revealed in 2013 and much more. Then, during our lengthy discussion on Adam’s American journey, he will recount the amazing happenings from the visit, which included numerous vocalizations from an unknown creature as well as the controversial trail cam photo of a mysterious entity which caused a massive stir in cryptozoology. Along the way, we’ll discuss a myriad of crypto topics like Melba Ketchum and the British Bigfoot.

Akin to a reunion with an old friend at a local pub, Adam Davies returns to BoA:Audio for a rollicking conversation recounting his adventures of 2012 and covering a wealth of cryptozoological topics.

Full Preview: We begin the conversation reflecting on Adam’s 2012, as a whole, which included trips to Sumatra as well as America and Adam reveals one surprising force which influenced his decision to finally visit the States. We then dive into Adam’s Spring trip to Sumatra, which was undertaken in part with the TV show Finding Bigfoot. We find out when the program may be airing and what it was like working with the team from Finding Bigfoot, in light of their online reputation amongst some of the more ardent cryptozoology enthusiasts.

Adam talks a little bit about the sort of investigations which he conducted during the trip and what the next step in his quest to prove the reality of the Orang Pendek. Adam also recalls his second mission on the trip, which was to honor his longtime tracker Zahar, who passed away since Adam’s last journey to the island. This segues into some talk about the ongoing Orang Pendek research that Zahar’s brother is continuing there to this day. Additionally, we talk about what sets Adam’s expeditions apart from a potential layperson visiting Sumatra searching for the Orang Pendek.

We then revisit how the Sumatran government feels about the alleged mystery beast living in their midst. Considering that Adam keeps ending up back in Sumatra, we ponder the likelihood that he’ll be there at some point again in 2013. Getting philosophical and speculative on the Orang Pendek, Adam ponders what his longterm reaction would be if he were to see the creature on one of his visits. In turn, he muses on his legacy as well as how he has become so indelibly linked to the Orang Pendek. We then get Adam to extrapolate on the ongoing DNA testing being done on Organg Pendek hair samples by world renowned geneticists Dr. Bryan Sykes.

Our conversation then turns towards Adam’s Fall visit to America and we begin by finding out some of the elements which led to him finally making the trip to the USA in search of Bigfoot. He then details the research he did to determine where, specifically, in the US to visit and how his friendship with Lori Simmons helped in pinpointing that location. He also talks about his initial expectations for the trip ended up differing wildly from what actually happened on the trip, beginning with some ‘communication’ between Lori and something in the woods.

Adam then recounts the fateful evening when camera traps captured the breathtaking photo of a massive ‘thing’ that was lurking in the campsite and the reaction his team had, in the morning, upon seeing the bizarre
image. Adam also retraces the many, many weird noises and events which happened during his visit. We dig into the details of Adam’s extraordinary experience in the forest by having him speculate on how far away they may have physically been from the creatures (aside from the controversial photo).

Revisiting the controversial photograph, we discuss the firestorm which erupted over the photo in the cryptozoology community and Adam responds to some of the critics, skeptics, and outright rude people who chimed in during the debate. We then find out from Adam why the trail cam photo wasn’t any longer nor didn’t capture more photos since the creature, ostensibly, had been in the camp enough for more pictures. On a personal level, Adam talks about what if feels like to know that such a massive beast was looming over him while he slept.

We stay on the topic of the mystery picture and revisit the initial reaction from Adam’s team in the morning and the moment of discovery of the notorious picture. Getting meta, we examine the implausibility that, after years of outstanding research, Adam would turn around and come to America to hoax a trail cam photo. Next we get Adam to speculate on the nature of the thing or creature captured in the trail cam photo. He also reflects on how this experience has fundamentally changed the perspective and goals for his research. This leads to a side discussion on the British Bigfoot and Adam’s thoughts on the possibility for its existence.

Looking at some of the finer details of the North America trip, we find out if there is any documentation for these sounds that were heard by Adam’s team. We also contrast the seemingly docile Orang Pendek with the hulking Bigfoot. We also get Adam’s take on the possibility that Lori orchestrated the noises from the woods to fool his team. Additionally, Adam recalls his trepidation while trying to sleep at the camp the night after discovering the trail cam photo. Revisiting the disappearing food aspect of Adam’s story, we find out why the ‘thefts’ were not captured on camera traps that had been stationed nearby.

Next, we talk about this amazing trip seems to have transformed Adam in a fundamental way, far beyond his previous journeys. We then talk about how the sounds that Adam heard and the experiences he had seem to suggest a sentience beyond a ‘normal’ animal. This leads to some talk about the controversial Melba Ketchum Bigfoot DNA story which broke around the end of 2012 and we get Adam’s perspective on the story as well as the flap of DNA interest in cryptozoology, in general. Looking at Bigfoot’s ‘bad PR,’ as a whole, we speculate on whether DNA evidence would help ‘turn the corner’ for public perception about the veracity of the creature.

The conversation then merges into a full on jam session as we find out why Adam didn’t investigate sea serpents as he had planned to do during his 2012 appearance on BoA:Audio. Beyond another trip to America, we talk about what other trips Adam may make in 2013 and whether he’d consider looking at other areas of the United States where Bigfoot have been said to lurk. Revisiting another area of discussion from previous years, we learn what sort of other cryptids that Adam might have an interest in searching for in the future, including a bizarre hominid said to live on an island in the Pacific.

Heading toward the close, Adam reflects on how excited he is about his American experience, which leads to the annual discussion of a Binnall-Davies Summit in New England. We also talk about how the controversy over the photo seems to have dissipated in a lot of ways and Adam speculates on why that seems to be the case. Looking at Bigfoot research as a whole, we muse about the competitive nature of the field over who will ultimately be ‘the one’ who breaks the case. Closing out the program, we tease the possibility that, in light of the less arduous nature of the American expedition, perhaps someday, Binnall can join in on the fun in the forest.

I have seen Adam Davies a number of times on the History Channel’s old ‘MonsterQuest’ series and he lent a lot of credibility to the cryptozoology field. Now, that’s not saying much for my opinion, but when Tim Binnall is involved, you are assured for an entertaining interview and some real good information.

Gary S. Bekkum, government researcher and author of Lies, Spies and Polygraph Tape, posts quite frequently about his special brand of UFO, alien threat theories and government involvement. Lately Robert Bigelow, the Skinwalker Ranch and U.S. government alphabet soup agencies have been items of interest on his site. I find his special brand of UFO/Alien theories refreshing and provide just enough out-of-this-world science to maintain plausibility:

We approached Bigelow adviser Dr. Eric Davis, a physicist who had, in 2001-2003, surveyed the field of teleportation, including reports of supernatural teleportation, while under contract by the U.S. Air Force.

With regard to Skinwalker-like reports of anomalous mind-matter interactions, Davis advised the Air Force, “We will need a physics theory of consciousness and psychotronics, along with more experimental data, in order to test … and discover the physical mechanisms that lay behind the psychotronic manipulation of matter. [Psychic] P-Teleportation, if verified, would represent a phenomenon that could offer potential high-payoff military, intelligence and commercial applications. This phenomenon could generate a dramatic revolution in technology, which would result from a dramatic paradigm shift in science. Anomalies are the key to all paradigm shifts!”

Davis told us, “NIDS folded in October 2004 and ceased routine intensive staff visits to the ranch back in 2001. I was the team leader from 1999-2001.”

“There were multiple voices that spoke in unison telepathically,” Davis candidly explained, regarding the Skinwalker attack, “The voices were monotone males with a very terse, threatening tone … Four senses were in their control so there was no odor, sound, smell, or touch, and overall body motion was frozen (as in the muscles that would not respond). Afterwards, when completely freed from this event — after the dark shadow disappeared — there was no lingering or residual odors, sounds, etc. in the immediate environment.”

“How do you interpret that?” I asked Davis. “Sounds like the Exorcist?”

“It does sound like it,” Davis responded, “But it wasn’t in the category of demonic possession. More like an intelligence giving a warning to the staff by announcing its presence and that they (the staff) were being watched by this presence. Demonic possessions are not short lived nor as benign as this, and they always have a religious context.”

What, exactly, was behind the reported experiences at Skinwalker Ranch? Was an unknown and highly capable and intelligent entity guarding its territory?

This is extremely interesting, because as I was perusing the InnerTubes this morning, I ran across various things DARPA was working on and some of them were telepathic research ideas. I wonder if Bekkum’s “Core Story” theory of government involvement in aliens and UFOs are an influence on such researches?

I’d like to open up a discussion talking about manipulating the mind & body using genetic engineering & cybernetic implants (FACT VS FICTION). This may sound a bit far fetch as there are many fiction stories regarding this type of subject, although fiction can reveal truth that reality obscures.What does the encyclopaedia tell us about Supersoldiers?

Supersoldier is a term often used to describe a soldier that operates beyond normal human limits or abilities. Supersoldiers are usually heavily augmented, either through eugenics (especially selective breeding), genetic engineering, cybernetic implants, drugs, brainwashing, traumatic events, an extreme training regimen (usually with high casualty rates, and often starting from birth or a young age), or other scientific and pseudoscientific means. Occasionally, some instances also use paranormal methods, such as black magic, and/or technology and science of extraterrestrial origin. The creators of such programs are viewed often as mad scientists or stern military men, depending on the emphasis, as their programs will typically go past ethical boundaries in the pursuit of science and/or military might.

In the PastHas any anyone/organization tried to create a program dedicated towards creating SuperSoldiers?Yes. From what history has told us with regarding groups/organizations creating a super soldier program the first well known groups that had interest in this were the Nazi’s. In 1935 they set up the spring life, as a sort of breeding /child-rearing program. The objective of the “spring life” was to create an everlasting Aryan race that would serve its purpose as the new super-soldiers of the future. Fact –The average Nazi soldier received a regular intake of pills designed to help them fight longer and without rest although these days it is now common for troops battling in war that take pills.Modern day What Super soldier Projects are in progress in this time & day? DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is currently working on projects from what today’s news tells us.What does the encyclopaedia tell us about DARPA?

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface.

A daily mail article around 13, 2012 talked about DARPA currently working on a Super-Solider program as of this moment, it is surprising that DARPA is becoming more open towards the public perhaps to become more acceptable within the public. Article explains:

Tomorrow’s soldiers could be able to run at Olympic speeds and will be able to go for days without food or sleep, if new research into gene manipulation is successful. According to the U.S. Army’s plans for the future, their soldiers will be able to carry huge weights, live off their fat stores for extended periods and even regrow limbs blown apart by bombs. The plans were revealed by novelist Simon Conway, who was granted behind-the-scenes access to the Pentagon’s high-tech Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Although these sources are from the conspiracy site Above Top Secretand the information is three months old, this ties in with Bekkum’s story and not only would super soldiers be formidable against regular Earth armies, they mind prove good cannon fodder against alien invaders who are pure telepathy, for a while maybe.

There is no way to prove this as truth of course, but I’m providing just enough info so you can research this on your own and come to your own conclusion.

The end of the year brings tragic news, with the passing of a very good friend of TDG, researcher and author Philip Coppens. Philip has been closely aligned with this site since almost the very beginning (so much so that I still struggle to type Philip rather than Filip, which he originally went by) – I’ve posted links to his regular, fascinating online articles over the years, and he contributed a number of features as well to our Darklore print anthology series (Volumes 1 to 5). He was less than a month younger than me, we had very similar interests, and both of us had a similar work ethic to our research, so I certainly felt that he was a kindred spirit. I was lucky enough to meet up with Philip at a Nexus conference here in Australia a few years back, and we had a good, long, personal chat about the whole scene and our experiences over the years. Philip had what I felt was an almost eidetic memory when it came to his research, he could converse at length about any number of Fortean subjects, remembering all the history, people involved, and esoteric connections off the top of his head (something that I struggle with). While he authored a number of books, and was a regular presenter at conferences and recently on TV with Ancient Aliens, for me he will always be remembered as a Fortean researcher with very few peers – you could always count on him to find something fascinating that hadn’t been uncovered before. We didn’t see eye to eye on a number of conclusions (e.g. the Bosnian pyramid), but we both respected each others’ work greatly. I recommend that you browse his website to get a feel for the breadth of knowledge the man had on a wide range of topics.

In the last few months Philip had been suffering from a mystery illness, which was finally recently diagnosed as a rare and very aggressive form of cancer, angiosarcoma. I understand a number of emergency surgeries were necessary in the past few days, and in the end it was all too much, with Philip passing away on December 30th, aged just 41. His wife Kathleen McGowan posted the following message:

My eternal beloved, my grail knight, my poet prince has made his transition. He is in the arms of the angels. In his last words he asked that I thank you all for loving him so much. We were both so greatly blessed. Good night, sweet prince. My love for you knows no boundaries and no time.

Philip’s passing also comes on the back of another fantastic researcher, with the death of astronomer and long-time psychical investigator Professor Archie E. Roy, author of the recent book The Eager Dead (and I tried to make it even worse by having an emergency situation myself with anaphylaxis due to a wasp sting).

Farewell to two fellow explorers of the strange, may all the mysteries be revealed to you now. You will be remembered.

I did not personally know Mr. Coppens, but I was a fan of his site ( http://www.philipcoppens.com/ ) and I thoroughly enjoyed his commentary on the Ancient Aliens TV show.

It seems that true students of the esoteric and Fortean subjects pass from this realm of the physical all too soon. Maybe they inadverdently stumble across the answers to the Synchromystical they seek?

When it comes to the Multiverse, several folks claim it’s all fantasy and let’s face it, the idea of several Universes just immeasurable millimeters away from our very noses reads like Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz.

But to Michael Hanlon, not only does the multiverse seem like the ultimate reality, it’s populated with any kind of reality that’s ever been theorized.

And then some.

Our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality is changing faster than ever before. Gigantic observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope on the Paranal Mountain in Chile are probing the furthest reaches of the cosmos. Meanwhile, with their feet firmly on the ground, leviathan atom-smashers such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under the Franco-Swiss border are busy untangling the riddles of the tiny quantum world.

Myriad discoveries are flowing from these magnificent machines. You may have seen Hubble’s extraordinary pictures. You will probably have heard of the ‘exoplanets’, worlds orbiting alien suns, and you will almost certainly have heard about the Higgs Boson, the particle that imbues all others with mass, which the LHC found this year. But you probably won’t know that (if their findings are taken to their logical conclusion) these machines have also detected hints that Elvis lives, or that out there, among the flaming stars and planets, are unicorns, actual unicorns with horns on their noses. There’s even weirder stuff, too: devils and demons; gods and nymphs; places where Hitler won the Second World War, or where there was no war at all. Places where the most outlandish fantasies come true. A weirdiverse, if you will. Most bizarre of all, scientists are now seriously discussing the possibility that our universe is a fake, a thing of smoke and mirrors.

All this, and more, is the stuff of the multiverse, the great roller-coaster rewriting of reality that has overturned conventional cosmology in the last decade or two. The multiverse hypothesis is the idea that what we see in the night sky is just an infinitesimally tiny sliver of a much, much grander reality, hitherto invisible. The idea has become so mainstream that it is now quite hard to find a cosmologist who thinks there’s nothing in it. This isn’t the world of the mystics, the pointy-hat brigade who see the Age of Aquarius in every Hubble image. On the contrary, the multiverse is the creature of Astronomers Royal and tenured professors at Cambridge and Cornell.

First, some semantics. The old-fashioned, pre-multiverse ‘universe’ is defined as the volume of spacetime, about 90 billion light years across, that holds all the stars we can see (those whose light has had enough time to reach us since the Big Bang). This ‘universe’ contains about 500 sextillion stars — more than the grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth — organised into about 80 billion galaxies. It is, broadly speaking, what you look up at on a clear night. It is unimaginably vast, incomprehensibly old and, until recently, assumed to be all that there is. Yet recent discoveries from telescopes and particle colliders, coupled with new mathematical insights, mean we have to discard this ‘small’ universe in favour of a much grander reality. The old universe is as a gnat atop an elephant in comparison with the new one. Moreover, the new terrain is so strange that it might be beyond human understanding.

That hasn’t stopped some bold thinkers from trying, of course. One such is Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University in New York. He turned his gaze upon the multiverse in his latest book, The Hidden Reality (2011). According to Greene, it now comes in no fewer than nine ‘flavours’, which, he says, can ‘all work together’.

The simplest version he calls the ‘quilted multiverse’. This arises from the observation that the matter and energy we can see through our most powerful telescopes have a certain density. In fact, they are just dense enough to permit a gravitationally ‘flat’ universe that extends forever, rather than looping back on itself. We know that a repulsive field pervaded spacetime just after the Big Bang: it was what caused everything to fly apart in the way that it did. If that field was large enough, we must conclude that infinite space contains infinite repetitions of the ‘Hubble volume’, the volume of space, matter and energy that is observable from Earth.

There is another you, sitting on an identical Earth, about 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 120 light years away

If this is correct, there might — indeed, there must — be innumerable dollops of interesting spacetime beyond our observable horizon. There will be enough of these patchwork, or ‘pocket’, universes for every single arrangement of fundamental particles to occur, not just once but an infinite number of times. It is sometimes said that, given a typewriter and enough time, a monkey will eventually come up with Hamlet. Similarly, with a fixed basic repertoire of elementary particles and an infinity of pocket universes, you will come up with everything.

In such a case, we would expect some of these patchwork universes to be identical to this one. There is another you, sitting on an identical Earth, about 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 120 light years away. Other pocket universes will contain entities of almost limitless power and intelligence. If it is allowed by the basic physical laws (which, in this scenario, will be constant across all universes), it must happen. Thus there are unicorns, and thus there are godlike beings. Thus there is a place where your evil twin lives. In an interview I asked Greene if this means there are Narnias out there, Star Trek universes, places where Elvis got a personal trainer and lived to his 90s (as has been suggested by Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York). Places where every conscious being is in perpetual torment. Heavens and hells. Yes, it does, it seems. And does he find this troubling? ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Exciting. Well, that’s what I say in this universe, at least.’

The quilted multiverse is only the beginning. In 1999 in Los Angeles, the Russian émigré physicist Andrei Linde invited a group of journalists, myself included, to watch a fancy computer simulation. The presentation illustrated Linde’s own idea of an ‘inflationary multiverse’. In this version, the rapid period of expansion that followed the Big Bang did not happen only once. Rather, like Trotsky’s hopes for Communism, it was a constant work in progress. An enormous network of bubble universes ensued, separated by even more unimaginable gulfs than those that divide the ‘parallel worlds’ of the quilted multiverse.

Here’s another one. String Theory, the latest attempt to reconcile quantum physics with gravity, has thrown up a scenario in which our universe is a sort of sheet, which cosmologists refer to as a ‘brane’, stacked up like a page in a book alongside tens of trillions of others. These universes are not millions of light years away; indeed, they are hovering right next to you now.

That doesn’t mean we can go there, any more than we can reach other universes in the quantum multiverse, yet another ‘flavour’. This one derives from the notion that the probability waves of classical quantum mechanics are a hard-and-fast reality, not just some mathematical construct. This is the world of Schrödinger’s cat, both alive and dead; here, yet not here. Einstein called it ‘spooky’, but we know quantum physics is right. If it wasn’t, the computer on which you are reading this would not work.

The ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum physics was first proposed in 1957 by Hugh Everett III (father of Mark Everett, frontman of the band Eels). It states that all quantum possibilities are, in fact, real. When we roll the dice of quantum mechanics, each possible result comes true in its own parallel timeline. If this sounds mad, consider its main rival: the idea that ‘reality’ results from the conscious gaze. Things only happen, quantum states only resolve themselves, because we look at them. As Einstein is said to have asked, with some sarcasm, ‘would a sidelong glance by a mouse suffice?’ Given the alternative, the prospect of innumerable branching versions of history doesn’t seem like such a terrible bullet to bite.

There is a non-trivial probability that we, our world, and even the vast extensions of spacetime are no more than a gigantic computer simulation

Stranger still is the holographic multiverse, which implies that ‘our world’ — not just stars and galaxies but you and your bedroom, your career problems and last night’s dinner — are mere flickers of phenomena taking place on an inaccessible plane of reality. The entire perceptible realm would amount to nothing more than shapes in a shadow theatre. This sounds like pure mysticism; indeed, it sounds almost uncannily like Plato’s allegory of the cave. Yet it has some theoretical support: Stephen Hawking relies on the idea in his solution to the Black Hole information paradox, which is the riddle of what happens to information destroyed as it crosses the Event Horizon of a dark star.

String theory affords other possibilities, and yet more layers of multiverse. But the strangest (and yet potentially simplest) of all is the idea that we live in a multiverse that is fake. According to an argument first posited in 2001 by Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford, there is a non-trivial probability that we, our world, and even the vast extensions of spacetime that we saw in the first multiverse scenarios, are no more than a gigantic computer simulation.

The idea that what we perceive as reality is no more than a construct is quite old, of course. The Simulation Argument, as it is called, has features in common with the many layers of reality posited by some traditional Buddhist thinking. The notion of a ‘pretend’ universe, on the other hand, crops up in fiction and film — examples include the Matrix franchise and The Truman Show (1998). The thing that makes Bostrom’s idea unique is the basis on which he argues for it: a series of plausible assumptions, plus a statistical calculation.

In essence, the case goes like this. If it turns out to be possible to use computers to simulate a ‘universe’ — even just part of one — with self-aware sentient entities in it, the chances are that someone, somewhere, will do this. Furthermore, as Bostrom explained it to me, ‘Look at the way our computer simulations work. When we run a simulation of, say, the weather or of a nuclear explosion [the most complex computer simulations to date performed], we do not run them once, but many thousands, millions — even billions — of times. If it turns out that it is possible to simulate — or, more correctly, generate — conscious awareness in a machine, it would be surprising if this were done only once. More likely it would be done countless billions of times over the lifetime of the advanced civilisation that is interested in such a project.’

If we start running simulations, as we soon might, given our recent advances in computing power, this would be very strong evidence that we ourselves live in a simulation. If we conclude that we are, we have some choices. I’ll say more on those below.

First, we come to the most bizarre scenario of all. Brian Greene calls it the ‘ultimate multiverse’. In essence, it says that everything that can be true is true. At first glance, that seems a bit like the quilted multiverse we met earlier. According to that hypothesis, all physical possibilities are realised because there is so much stuff out there and so much space for it to do things in.

Those who argue that this ‘isn’t science’ are on the back foot. The Large Hadron Collider could find direct evidence for aspects of string theory within the decade

The ultimate multiverse supercharges that idea: it says that anything that is logically possible (as defined by mathematics rather than by physical reality) is actually real. Furthermore, and this is the important bit, it says that you do not necessarily need the substrate of physical matter for this reality to become incarnate. According to Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the ‘Mathematical Universe Hypothesis’ can be stated as follows: ‘all structures that exist mathematically also exist physically‘. Tegmark uses a definition of mathematical existence formulated by the late German mathematician David Hilbert: it is ‘merely the freedom from contradiction’. Hence, if it is possible, it exists. We can allow unicorns but not arbitrary, logic-defying magic.

I haven’t given the many theories of the multiverse much thought in the past few years just because of the different iterations of it.

Although there is some mysticism tied into the quantum physics theory and ultimately the many theories of the Multiverse(s), the “real” world applications of computers ( and ultimately quantum computing ), quantum teleporting and the experiments performed on the Large Hadron Collider in Europe does indeed put critics of the many variations of the multiverse theories “on the back foot.”

Fortean explorer and UFO humorist Jim Moseley died of cancer this past Friday night ( 11/16 ) at the age of 81.

I never talked to, emailed, posted a reply or blogged Mr. Moseley at all since I’ve been posting on the Internet over the past five years, but I’ve listened to him and Gene Steinberg banter on Steinberg’s Paracast radio show enough times to know that he was a very fascinating and interesting folk character in his own right and that his influence will be felt in the UFO community forever and his type of humor will be greatly missed:

Fortean friend, ufology humorist, and writer James W. Moseley, 81, died Friday night, November 16, 2012. He passed away at a Key West, Florida, hospital, several months after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

Upon hearing of the death of Moseley, Anomalist Books publisher and editor Patrick Huyghe said: “He was one of the last remaining old timers from the golden age of flying saucers. Goodbye, Jim.”

I, Loren Coleman, first met James W. Moseley (“Jim” to his friends) when he, John Keel, and I were speaking at a Fortfest in the D.C. area, in 1973. The most vivid memory I have of that time is sitting with these two gentlemen in the dark and shabby lobby of a motel, listening to the foremost scholars of ufology decide what they would do that evening. I recall politely excusing myself to finetune my next day’s presentation, as they skipped off, by foot, across the multilane highway, to visit a nearby striptease joint. And thus I was introduced to the braintrust of ufology, and knew what the end would look like – some sort of cosmic mix of humor and nudity galore!

Did it matter what people thought? Ufology historian and Moseley friend Jerome Clark wrote me: “Well, it did matter. It mattered to Jim, who was not gay and who did not like it when people spread such speculation.”

But it went beyond breasts: In the May 10, 2004, issue of Saucer Smear, Moseley highlighted the republishing of a book on three alien monsters raping a woman named Barbara Turner in her bedroom.

Actually, it was quite obvious. Moseley was a comic, extremely interested in women and sex, and loved to be the center-of-attention. Certainly, his lifestyle was secretive to some. For almost thirty years, Moseley lived in Florida.

Moseley with a large poster of marine treasure hunter Mel Fisher.

In 1984, Moseley established an antiques store in Key West, Florida. He also made money in real estate. In 1992, Moseley donated his Peruvian material to the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History, located in Dania, Florida, where it is on permanent display.

James Moseley was a pivotal chronicler of a now-famed mystery that issued from his interest in ancient Peruvian artifacts. It is to be recalled that the Nazca Lines were first discovered by the Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe, who spotted them when hiking through the foothills in 1927. He discussed them at a conference in Lima in 1939. Maria Reiche, a German-born mathematician and archaeologist, first studied and set out to preserve the Nazca Lines in 1940. Paul Kosok, a historian from Long Island University, is credited as the first scholar to seriously study the Nazca Lines in the USA, on site in Peru, in 1940-41. But it was Moseley who first wrote about the Nazca Lines as an intriguing Fortean phenomena in Fate Magazine, in October 1955, suggesting a mysterious origin, long before they interested alternative writers such as Erich von Däniken (1968), Henri Stierlin (1983) and Gerald Hawkins (1990).

In short, the treatise of the book is that UFOs and their “aliens” are not necessarily alien. They could be in fact a very ancient race of the first intelligent beings of this world, perhaps a branch of the dinosaur family, or closely related to the human race.

In Part-1 of my Saucers of Manipulation article, I noted: “The late Mac Tonnies – author of The Cryptoterrestrials and After the Martian Apocalypse – once said: ‘I find it most interesting that so many descriptions of ostensible aliens seem to reflect staged events designed to misdirect witnesses and muddle their perceptions.’ Mac was not wrong. In fact, he was right on target. One can take even the most cursory glance at ufological history and see clear signs where events of a presumed alien and UFO nature have been carefully controlled, managed and manipulated by the intelligence behind the phenomenon.”

And, I further added: “But, why would such entities – or whatever the real nature of the phenomenon may be – wish to make themselves known to us in such curious, carefully-managed fashion? Maybe it’s to try and convince us they have origins of the ET variety, when they are actually…something very different…”

So, if “they” aren’t alien, after all, then what might “they” be? And if the non-ET scenario has validity, why the desire to manipulate us and convince us of the extraterrestrial angle? Let’s take a look at a few possibilities.

Now, before people get their blood-pressure all out of control, I am the first to admit that what follows amounts to theories on the part of those that have addressed them. The fact is that when it comes to fully understanding the origin of the UFO phenomenon…well…there aren’t any facts! What we do have are ideas, theories, suggestions and beliefs. Anyone who tells you otherwise is 100 percent wrong, mistaken, deluded or lying. No-one in Ufology – ever – has offered undeniable 100 percent proof that any theory is correct beyond all doubt. And provided we understand that theorizing, postulating and suggesting do not (and cannot) equate to proving, then there’s no problem. So, with that said, read on.

Let’s first go back to Mac Tonnies and his cryptoterrestrials. Regardless of whether or not Mac was onto something with his theory that UFOs might originate with a very ancient, impoverished race that lives alongside us in stealth – and that masquerades as extraterrestrial to camouflage its real origins – at least he admitted it was just a theory. He didn’t scream in shrill tones that he was definitely correct. And he didn’t suggest that if you disagreed with him you needed to be ejected from the ufological play-pen. So many within that same play-pen – for whom, for some baffling reason, shouting louder somehow means: “I’m closer to the truth than you!” – could learn a lesson or several from Mac.

Rather than originating on far-off worlds, Tonnies carefully theorized, the cryptoterrestrials may actually be a very old and advanced terrestrial body of people, closely related to the Human Race, who have lived alongside us in secret – possibly deep underground – for countless millennia. In addition, Mac suggested that (a) today, their numbers may well be waning; (b) their science may not be too far ahead of our own – although they would dearly like us to believe they are our infinitely-advanced, technological-masters; (c) to move amongst us, and to operate in our society, they ingeniously pass themselves off as aliens; and (d) they are deeply worried by our hostile ways – hence the reason why they are always so keen to warn us of the perils of nuclear destruction and environmental collapse: they are grudgingly forced to share the planet with us, albeit in a distinctly stealthy and stage-managed fashion.

Moving on from beings of the past to entities of the future, Joshua P. Warren, investigator and author of numerous things of a paranormal nature, has addressed the highly controversial angle that the UFOnauts are our future selves: Time Travelers. And, in doing so, Josh has focused deeply on the mysterious matter of the macabre Men in Black.

Josh asks of their odd attire: “Why do the MIB dress like this? Why do we call them the Men in Black? Well, if a man puts on a black suit, with a black hat and walks down the street in 1910, and you see that man, you would probably notice him. But, would you think there was anything too extraordinary, or too out-of-place about him? No: you probably would not. And if you saw a man walking down the street in 2010 wearing a black suit and a black hat, would you notice him? Probably, yes. But, would you think you think there was necessarily anything too extraordinary? No.”

What this demonstrates, says Warren, is that the outfit of the black suit and the black hat is flexible enough to work within the social context of the culture of at least a century or more. And so, therefore, if you are someone who is in the time-travel business – and within the course of your workday, you’re going to go to 1910 to take care of some business, and then a couple of hours later you’re going to be in 1985, and then a few hours after that you’ll be heading to 2003 – you don’t want to be in a position of having to change your clothes three times. So, what do you do? In Warren’s hypothesis, you dress in an outfit that is going to allow you access to the longest period of time within which that same outfit may not draw too much unwelcome attention.

“And that’s why,” suggests Warren “in and around the whole 20th Century, it just so happens that the black suit and the black hat will work for them.”

And, if you don’t want to give away who you really are, encouraging the idea that you are extraterrestrial, goblin-like or supernatural – rather than future-terrestrial – would make a great deal of sense. If, of course, the theory has merit!

Then there is probably the most controversial angle of all: UFOs are from Hell…

Again UFOs are angels and demons meme ala the Collins Elite is presented because of the seeming paranormal behavior of the phenomenon.

But I am reminded of the old Arthur C. Clarke saw that a sufficiently advanced technology of an ancient race is indistinguishable from magic ( I’m paraphrasing here ), so the supernatural theory is not a very convincing argument to me.

Lately I’ve been haunting the STARpod site picking up on odd bits of psychic stuff that Gary Bekkum says filters through the aether. Today was no different and I scanned this little article that caught my interest since it mentions quantum theory and multiple universes:

Multiple sources and declassified US government documents point to the US National Security Agency as the new home of a TOP SECRET program to utilize human time machines during the Bush War on Terror.Now, a Russian physicist, Michael Mensky, of the Lebedev Physical Institute, has come forward in a series of papers explaining how human time machines are able to retrieve information from alternative worlds, including the future.

Several independent sources to STARstream Research have provided information about the existence of a secret NSA program, said to be at the deepest levels of secrecy.

Government documents have identified NSA participation in earlier efforts to utilize human time machines by the US government, including programs run by the CIA, the DIA, the US Navy, the US Army, the USAF, and others.

In 1994, the US Defense Intelligence Agency contractor SAIC reported on a potential breakthrough in the physics of human time machines, following secret and covert analysis of research from the Former Soviet Union, of FSU. According to the SAIC report, the breakthrough involved the detection of a signal potentially related to the transmission and reception of information traveling through time. One source who came forward about the NSA program revealed the human time machines are managed under SIGINT, or Signals Intelligence, suggesting the program involves an unknown signal mechanism.

STARpod.org first revealed the existence of the human time machine program in 2007, based upon research provided by a source to Gus Russo, an independent investigative journalist who has worked for PBS and ABC. Another source, Chris Robinson, of the United Kingdom, has related how US intelligence sources contacted him about the program following a warning issued to the American CIA in London, hours prior to the 9/11 attack in New York City.

Russian physicist Michael Mensky, an associate of Russian time travel expert Igor Novikov, has come forward with a model of the human time machine concept, based upon the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum theory. The idea behind “many worlds,” which now appears to be the simplest explanation of the theory behind 21st Century technology, says that the universe we observe is only one of an infinite number of invisible alternative worlds. According to the quantum theory, as explained by leading expert David Deutsch, of Oxford, the worlds we cannot see weakly interfere with our universe. Quantum experiments confirm this interference, although the interpretation of the scientific observation of the effect is hotly debated by the scientific community.

Deutsch explains that among the alternative worlds are special worlds we call “the future.” Deutsch explains that these worlds share a common past with our world, but branch off into different alternative events: in one of these worlds, the 9/11 attacks failed to take place.

In his landmark book, The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch describes how time machines might be used to connect the present moment with one of the future alternative worlds. According to Deutsch, information sent back in time from a future world could be used to change the future, since what we call the future is actually just a special case of an alternative parallel universe.

Mensky has proposed the idea of “post correction” to explain human time machines.

In order to explain how human beings can become time travelers, Mensky developed an extended version of “many worlds” theory, where the human mind is able to access alternative worlds, including those we would call the future. Mensky has proposed that “consciousness is not produced by the brain, but is independent of it.” In Mensky’s theory, “the brain serves as an interface between consciousness and the body.”

Although Mensky’s ideas appear to be based in metaphysics, the real-world application of human time travelers to access information about the future by the NSA suggests an information channel is being studied by America’s premier information technology intelligence agency. Given the decades of interest in this topic by American and Russian, and now Chinese intelligence services, the on-going use of human time machines to predict future threats seems certain.

Now many mainstream science blogger types (and I know a few) would claim that Bekkum travels to the Land of Woo on a daily basis and I can see why some would claim that, it’s pretty incredible to believe such claims.

But this Universe is a large and strange place and we know very little of it (even though some mainstream science types would deny that). What we consider science now-a-days might be looked upon as ignorant superstition 1000 years from now.